Be sure to go check out Jenn’s website by clicking here.

Jenn, you are amazingly awesome and I’m so blessed to know and work with you! I can’t wait for our first wedding this year in March! Thank you so much for taking SUCH precious pictures of our little angel! We love them so much!!! XOXO

The first 4 photos below were taken by Alison at Life and Love Studio

Alison-thank you so much for coming over and doing this session. We are so blessed and I’m so happy to have met you and worked with you! I can’t wait to work with you here in a few short weeks! <3

Here are my favorites. To visit Jenn’s website, click here. PS: I was swollen like a friggin’ blimp and 11 days overdue! Don’t judge!

Jenn, thank you SOOO much for these photos! They are so special and I’ll cherish them for forever! Love you girl! XOXO

I’m not sure if the below pictures fall under the category of “treating her well” but she looked super cute in her birthday hat. I got her a nice chew and a squirrel toy, though she doesn’t know it yet. I’m waiting for daddy to come home so he can help me give it to her.

Happy Birthday Jayda Bird! You’re the best dog in the world and even though you don’t understand most of the words that I say, I hope you know just how much I love you baby!

HUGE thanks to Jenn Hopkins of Jenn Hopkins Photography for coming to take photographs of her yesterday. Click here to visit her website. This is the sneak peek image I got to see. I cannot wait to share the rest with you! Also, this image was downloaded from Facebook (with permission of course!) so it may look a little compressed.

A few weeks ago, my good friend and fellow photographer, Monica Starr Brown, and her family came to visit. I always love when she comes to town because I know it will not only be fun to see her and her CUTE little boy Desmond, but we’ll also get some updated pictures for each other. Desmond turned 6 months old last month so we set out to Hanna Park to do picture with her, Desmond, and her husband, Jeremy, for Desmond’s 6 month mark! I can’t believe he’s already almost a year old!

This time of year, it seems Florida hazes up in the afternoons and has been staying cloudy until after the sun goes down. Luckily, the sun peeked out for a brief period of time for us to get the GORGEOUS beautiful light that we love so much! This was Desmond’s first time playing in the sand and getting a little wet. He was sooo good and really seemed to enjoy himself. I love the sand on his face in the last couple of pictures. He’s definitely an explorer!

Jeremy, Monica, and Desmond-I had such a great time with you three! I really enjoyed our visit and I can’t wait to see you again soon! XOXO!

I try to blame as much on the baby as I can, so in doing so, I blame the baby for the fact that I have yet to pick up my camera this year… Since we’re all of 36 hours into it and all haha! We are still waiting for her to arrive. COME ON CARLY! My due date was yesterday but she has decided that I have to take her to court to evict her. Apparently my eviction notice means nothing to her. Hopefully I won’t have to be induced but if she isn’t out by the end of next week, I will likely have to be induced by Friday of next week because they don’t let you go past 42 weeks.

So, until then, I will probably be slower on the blogging. I REALLY thought she’d come before the end of 2011 and I thought I was good with my 3 weeks of prescheduled blog posts to last me through the end of the year, but Internet, I’ve found myself on the second day of 2012 having to write this blog post. Thanks a lot Carly. Fo realz. haha!

Many of you know I was laid off of my corporate job back in July of 2010. Most people think layoffs are horrible things, and yes, they are and can be, but for me, it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I’ve talked about that a lot too so I won’t do too much talking about that at this point. Instead, I want to talk about the opportunities that have come about this past year that have made it so amazing that probably wouldn’t have happened if I was still working a corporate job. Before I go into it though, let me just say that I’m glad the decision was made for me because I could have never left a solid, stable income with benefits to pursue a fulfilling life. I’m very lucky that my husband supports us now (after down sizing) and that we have great benefits through his amazing employer. There are a lot of weekend warriors out there wishing they could quit their jobs to pursue their passions but please know that I am not saying you should quit your job. What I am saying is that I’m glad that I didn’t have to make that decision, because I could have never gone through with quitting. Instead, I was laid off and after talking about things at length with my husband (I had a gut feeling 3 months before it happened that it was going to happen so we planned for 3 months for a layoff) we decided I wouldn’t pursue another corporate job; at least not until I could prove to myself that my photography business wouldn’t work. Most people don’t get that luxury and I recognize that I’m very blessed to have it.

Enough about that… This past year, I got to focus on me, which is sort of unfamiliar territory. For so long, my time was eaten up by working a corporate job during the day, working for my photography business at night and on the weekends, going to school, spending some sort of time with my husband, and trying to find some sort of time to myself, which really wasn’t that hard since I worked at home for my old employer in complete solitude all day. All of a sudden, I had the time to focus on learning who I was and developing my “new” life. After relocating back to Jacksonville from Chicago without my husband (it took him 7 months to get a job here) I knew there were a few things I had to do. I had to make a plan for my business, get back into school down here, and figure out who I was and what I wanted for my life. Business and life goals continually evolve so my goals last year won’t be my goals for next year, but to have an idea of where I wanted to start and to have a plan to start was super important to me.

In order to tell you how this year came about, I need to talk a little about the last 5 months of 2010; the months after I moved back to Florida. At first, I took some time to relax and get settled into our new apartment. Downsizing from a large 4 bedroom home to a smaller 3 bedroom apartment took some time. I had to weed out our possessions and decide what we could do without. I also took some time to just up and go places with friends on a whim because I knew that that would likely be the last point in my life that I could just up and go to the beach or meet a friend for coffee or lunch. I also had spent the first 4 years of marriage in Chicago with no friends or family (my oldest brother ended up moving there but we lived far away). So after moving back and having the opportunity to be around friends again after so long, I gladly went to the beach multiple times, relaxed by the pool, soaked up the sun, etc. I mean, 8 months of the year in Chicago there was no sun, so the sun and I had some catching up to do. I had to get some vitamin D! After about a month, I still allowed myself to up and go, but that’s when I started to focus on my photography business. I started networking with other photographers and vendors, going to local photographer meetings, etc. I also knew I wanted to get back into school (I quit Columbia College Chicago in May of 2009 after deciding I wanted to move back to Florida) so I applied and was accepted to UNF and had to get all of that loveliness taken care of.

During the 7 months that I lived on a day to day basis without my husband, I did a lot of soul searching. Through my depression from working at home in the cold, gray, water logged corn fields of Illinois, I became a very cynical and negative person, which wasn’t who I was or who I wanted to be. Thanks to my dad for constantly pointing it out and giving me the book “The Secret” I learned about the power of positive thinking. Over the course of those 7 months, I really turned my attitude around. I found a lot about who I was, why I believe what I believe, got rid of some beliefs that I knew weren’t accurate but went along with because that was what was ingrained in my brain, etc. I also joined a gym and started exercising and becoming a runner again.

Here’s where my incredible year starts. New Year’s Eve, 2010. I was second shooting an AMAZING wedding with the awesome and super talented Dana Goodson. My husband was in town visiting. It was the first New Year’s Eve I had spent away from him, but I knew if I wanted to make things work, I’d have to give up that time with him, at least just for that point in time. I decided at that wedding that I hadn’t lost enough weight even though I had been working my butt off at the gym and it was time to change my eating habits. I kid you not, I’m not usually like this, but a few days later, I saw Cinch Diet on Rachael Ray, went out, bought the book, and it changed my eating life. If you want to read more about it, I wrote all about it on my life and living blog, According To Jen. You can read about it by clicking here, read about my eating out habits here, and my “battle of the mind” article here. And just to show you how fat I was when I finished working for Aetna, here’s a little compilation…

Here’s my fattest and part way through the process.

I actually got down to 164.6 but I don’t have a photo of me from then, because two days later I took this photo. I was actually 164.6 the day I found out I was pregnant. This is my week 4 pregnancy picture. Oh how I miss my running legs.

Anyway, so yeah. I started my weight loss journey in January, kept up with my running and exercising and ran my first 15K in March! The Gate River Run was awesome and I’m super proud to have worked myself to a place, health wise, that I could do that. I would have never done this if I stayed working from home for Aetna. You can read and see photos from the Gate River Run 2011 by clicking here. Now I’m nice and bloated and pregnant but after Carly comes out (though by the time this ends up posted she might be here-I’m writing this on Dec 13th) I will be hitting the gym and getting back to running once my doctor clears me. So that’s an incredible accomplishment for me.

Next, a small but still noteworthy accomplishment… I started back at UNF in the Spring of 2011. It was actually very relieving to not only be back in school, but it was that “art focus time” I needed on a regular basis to help me clear my mind and relax. I think “artistic time” is important because it feeds your creative soul, which, for an artist, is like eating. You have to have it to stay alive.

Another small but still noteworthy accomplishment was that Colby moved back home in March. Actually, he moved back here the day before my birthday. That was a nice birthday gift!

A bigger school accomplishment was that in the Fall of 2011 semester, I took a fashion photography as art class and not only started my fashion portfolio, but got to work with the amazing and SUPER talented Paulina Perez. It was so wonderful getting to work with her and know her throughout the semester. She’s an amazing woman. She is super dedicated, determined, powerful, and energetic. She’s a recipe for success! I really enjoyed doing fashion photography and think it may be something I’d like to pursue commercially. I don’t know how to go about it, but after things settle down with a new baby, I’ll be scoping out that area of photography.

This year has also brought about some great second shooting opportunities with Jacksonville’s most talented and amazing photographers. I’ve really enjoyed second shooting and working with other photographers. I’ve really loved getting to know them on a personal and professional level. They’ve taught me so much and I’m so grateful to have worked with them. Hopefully next year I’ll have the opportunity to work with them as well!

A BIG accomplishment this year was getting pregnant. In December of 2008, I thought I was pregnant. I was nauseated and bloated much of the time and it was unexplainable. This may be TMI, but I’m pretty open about most things so I don’t mind sharing, but I react very poorly to birth control, so I used an IUD (Mirena) as my form of birth control. The likelihood of being pregnant is slim to none when you have an IUD put in. Anyway, so I went to the doctor and my blood test came back negative. For the first time in my life, I was actually disappointed that I wasn’t pregnant. I never wanted kids (thanks to an ongoing babysitting job I had when I was younger of 4 kids; one infant, one toddler, one good child, and one with HORRIBLE ADHD and a bad attitude) but I knew someday Colby and I would start a family, but the desire wasn’t there… at least until then. I remember laying in bed with my face in my pillow with Colby asking me to tell him what was on my mind. I was too embarrassed to tell him that I actually WANTED to start a family. The girl who hated kids and didn’t want them all of a sudden had her biological clock kick in and create that desire within her. After about a half an hour of, “Tell me what’s on your mind” and the response being, “I can’t” he finally got it out of me. With my face still planted in my pillow, I admitted that I was disappointed that I wasn’t pregnant and that I wanted to start a family. We disagreed, which made it really hard emotionally because all of a sudden, I wanted something I couldn’t have. After two years, my husband finally agreed and we started trying. I had my IUD taken out in May of 2010 but we didn’t start trying until December 2010. After 5 months, on April 23rd, I found out I was pregnant! As for the unexplained nausea and bloating? Turns out, I have an intolerance to soy and in November of 2008, I had switched to soy milk. That was causing the nausea and bloating.

Another accomplishment that I am not only SUPER proud of but that is also near and dear to my heart is the start of The JRB Foundation. You can read about it and watch a video about it by clicking here. I love animals, especially dogs and I’m so glad to be part of a movement to end no kill shelters in Jacksonville. This year, I’ve helped spread the word on 11 dogs who are older and had been at the shelter for a long period of time to help them get adopted out. It’s an incredible feeling to know that you’re doing an act of kindness and goodness in this world. Some people call it selfish, but I call it a sense of accomplishment. Accomplishments feel good, especially when the accomplishment saves an animals life from needless killing. I don’t want to start a debate about if we put as much into abused children as we did animals the world would be a better place, but I believe that everyone is called to something that moves them emotionally and to their core. While there are horrible things in this world, some issues strike us more than others. I feel badly for abused women, children, men, elders, etc, but I’m moved to my core by abuse and needless killing towards animals. I can’t help it. It’s just the way I am.

This year, I’ve also gained a sense of who I am as a photographer. The fog of “who am I supposed to be and what am I supposed to do” is starting to clear so I can see more clearly where I want to be and what I want to focus on.

I also started a separate life and living blog this year called According To Jen. I started it because I wanted a place on the web that I could blog about non photography related things without having to use my photography blog. That’s been pretty awesome too! I love blogging.

Speaking of blogging, this year, I reached my 400th blog entry on JSP!

On a personal level, I’ve weeded people out of my life that I knew were either holding me back, keeping me down, contributing towards my negativity, or that just weren’t good for me to be around. It’s amazing what the power of a positive attitude can do. It’s also amazing that when you change your negative attitude, you start to see every place in your life where your negativity has attracted negativity. Positive energy attracts positive energy and I think this year proves to be attracting positivity. This year has served up some bad things too, on a personal level. I can’t mention them specifically but I will say that through death comes life, through sickness comes healing, through bad comes good, through dark comes light, and through fog there’s a clearing.

This year almost seems like it has been a rebirth, at least for me. I see so many people hating this year because of things that have happened to them. Maybe my change of attitude has brought about this year of rebirth and positivity. I really can’t explain it, but I really feel so blessed and satisfied. I remember before I got laid off writing somewhere on some blog, “Is this really all there is to life?” Today, I can say that no, that wasn’t all there was to life. Life has been so rewarding and fulfilling since I’ve started focusing on things that are good, that I am good at, that I have a desire for, etc. People have to go after what they want or else they don’t feel fulfilled. I don’t mean that that applies to every area of life, but I think more and more people are realizing that as a career, you have to do something you love or else you end up miserable. That doesn’t mean it will be easy, fruitful, or financially rewarding, but you have to weigh what you want in life and decide how you want to get there and if you can’t get there doing what you love, either choose to do something you don’t love to get there, or change your desires to something more attainable.

I hope your year has been incredible too. Here’s to 2012 being more awesome than 2011! Cheers!

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